* Investigate radio broadcasts in a series of case studies that spans the Cold War.

* Examine outgoing propaganda themes and techniques, considering how these changed over time.

* Tackle the interplay between Eastern and Western radio broadcasting, investigating how radio stations were aware of their opponents and felt the need to continuously alter the focus and content of their programmes.

* Question whether the cooperation between different broadcasting corporations entailed a ‘leading partner’ like the BBC and VOA, considering the impact of the local broadcasters on shaping the priorities, themes and working methods of the bigger broadcasting corporations.

Introduction :Radio Wars: Broadcasting in the Cold War / Linda Risso, pages 145-152
« If the ColdWar was a war of ideas and ideologies for the ‘soul of mankind’, radio was definitely one of the weapons of choice. Radio played an important role in the ideological confrontation between East and West as well as within each bloc and, as archival documents gathered here reveal, it was among the most pressing concerns of contemporary information agencies.Radio broadcasts could penetrate the Iron Curtain and directly address the ‘enemy’. This was extremely important in the early ColdWar. For the audiences behind the Iron Curtain, Western broadcasting opened an alternative channel for the flow of new information and ideas and it contributed to the erosion of public support for the government. If recently published figures are correct, one-third of Soviet urban adults and around half of East European adults were regular listeners ofWestern broadcasts. Given the widespread listenership and the perceived destabilizing role of Western programming, it is not surprising that the Communist regimes spent considérable time, energy, and resources fighting foreign broadcasts through jamming, censorship, and a renewed propaganda effort of their own national radio broadcasts… »

Introduction, is freely available online. Click Here to link to this article and download it.

‘A hideously difficult country’: British propaganda to France in the early Cold War / Hilary Footitt, pages 153-169
This article examines British propaganda efforts in France in the early Cold War in the light of a developing relationship in which the senders’ own strategies were to be modified and challenged. The article argues that initiatives to broadcast propaganda from Britain into France via the BBC operated within a broader and developing information policy context. Broadcasting from outside the country through the BBC was supplemented with attempts by British personnel stationed in France to embed positive messages directly within the contemporary French media. By 1950 however, the British propaganda initiative seemed inappropriate and outmoded, taken over by the French themselves and by a British desire to prioritise countries outside Western Europe.

Did the RAI buy it? The role and limits of American broadcasting in Italy in the Cold War / Simona Tobia, pages 171-191
With a 20 million dollar budget and 1,900 staff, Voice of America broadcast in 45 different languages and Italy was one of its main targets. By looking into what went on behind the microphone, this article addresses the extent to which cultural change was planned and structured transnationally, the interactions and interdependencies operating between Washington and Rome, and how cooperation was achieved despite the fierce resistance of some of Radio Audizioni Italia’s (RAI) executives. This allowed programmes produced in New York to air, and led to the launch of the most popular character of Italian radio and television: Mike Bongiorno.

Voices, letters, and literature through the Iron Curtain: exiles and the (trans)mission of radio in the Cold War / Friederike Kind-Kovács, pages 193-219
The article investigates the role of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty as a crucial junction of cross-Iron Curtain communication throughout the Cold War. It explores how the radio stations turned into both real as well as imaginary targets of letters, underground literature, and private phone calls from the ‘Other Europe’. After outlining the radios’ mission in the early 1950s, the article concentrates on the practical as well as the symbolic employability of exiles. This will help further the understanding of the central role of exiles in closing gaps between the radio stations’ mission and their actual transmission. By reestablishing means of real cross-border communication, exiles turned into the key players of this ‘Cold War of the ether’.

Cold War radio and the Hungarian Uprising, 1956 / Alban Webb, pages 221-238
Overseas broadcasting during the Hungarian uprising indicated a new phase in the relationship between the media and the international events they report. Mapping the course of the uprising for Hungarian and global audiences alike, the western radios occupied multiple broadcast, diplomatic, and cultural terrains. The anti-communist rhetoric of their output allied to their perceived influence on listeners behind the Iron Curtain made the Hungarian uprising a cause célèbre of international broadcasting: one that revealed both the strategic significance of cold war radio as well as the limits of its use as a tactical weapon.

Captive audience? GDR radio in the mirror of listeners’ mail / Christoph Classen, pages 239-254
According to the rise of totalitarian theories after 1990 research on broadcasting in the former socialist states emphasised its propagandistic character and political overstretch. This cannot be dismissed out of hand, but a closer look to listeners’ mail show, that the praxis of Radio in the GDR didn’t simply merge in political persuasion. In fact it results even in dictatorship in the long run from a dynamic negotiation process between audiences and broadcasters. In particular radio in East Germany was by no means resistant to the influences of popular culture from the West.

Listening behind the curtain: BBC broadcasting to East Germany and its Cold War echo / Patrick Major, pages 255-275
This article examines British propaganda efforts in France in the early Cold War in the light of a developing relationship in which the senders’ own strategies were to be modified and challenged. The article argues that initiatives to broadcast propaganda from Britain into France via the BBC operated within a broader and developing information policy context. Broadcasting from outside the country through the BBC was supplemented with attempts by British personnel stationed in France to embed positive messages directly within the contemporary French media. By 1950 however, the British propaganda initiative seemed inappropriate and outmoded, taken over by the French themselves and by a British desire to prioritise countries outside Western Europe.

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